


This Is His Love

by Chaerring



Series: This Is His Love, This is Her Body [1]
Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Always a girl! Q, Bond centric, F/M, Gen, Spoilers for Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaerring/pseuds/Chaerring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For an Anonymous prompt: <i>Genderswapped Q- There were few women in the world that Bond respected too much to sleep with them. M was one of them, Q becomes one of them.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is His Love

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don't own Bond or Q, or any other bit of the world, and the title if from Florence and the Machine's "Bedroom Hymns", which I think is a very James song.
> 
> Thanks so much to my beta, TheGreatSporkWielder!

  
_I'm not here looking for absolution  
Because I found myself an old solution_

“Bedroom Hyms” - Florence and the Machine

James’s adult life has been ruled entirely by the women in it. Their presence, yes, but more and more often now, their absence. He can plot all of his life by them. There’s M, always M, until she’s not anymore. Vesper. Moneypenny, a quick pain and a long drop. And the rest that mattered only for what they could do for England.

With M gone James finds himself in limbo. He’d prefer to think of it as a transition period, but he’s not sure he’s going anywhere to be able to claim that he’s in motion. Mallory will be a fine boss. Different, but perhaps the change MI6 needs to keep itself moving forward. If pressed after Silva, James could admit to feeling the rare sort of kinship brothers in arms felt sometimes towards him, but this M is not _his_ M. 

There’s Eve to be considered, but James can’t quite bring himself to walk down that road. It doesn’t take a genius to see that someday she could be some other 00s’ M. It feels a little dirty to him to try and wear her out before they get the chance to.

And then there’s Q. 

Q who is simultaneously everything and nothing like what he expects her to be. Her clothes are unmistakably from men’s stores and he doesn’t believe her hair has ever seen a comb besides her fingers, but she moves like a woman and doesn’t correct him when he refers to her with feminine pronouns. She looks like she ought to be waiting somewhere for a corsage and a dance, but Eve helpfully pointed out the miniscule bit of accessible information on the Quartermaster, proving she’s a decade older than he had estimated her to be. 

He has the thought idly for months as she cuts in and out of his mind through his ear, of unbuttoning her cardigan, her vest, her shirt, and seeking out her skin beneath. He wondered if it would be smooth like he was used to, or if she’d surprise him again with a patchwork of scars and flaws acquired in the decades before MI6’s Quartermaster became a woman. She would let him, he’s certain. It’s there in the challenge of her wit and the extra gadget that was supplied after the first time he brought his gun back in working order.

The odd bit is how much James genuinely likes her, and how much he suspects she might return the feeling. It’s about the slim length of her neck and the way she utterly forgoes shoes that make echoes in the tunnels, but it’s also about the way her eyes go flat and half lidded at code that’s not doing what it’s supposed to and the way she looks at him when he’s done something that saves her branch money. It might be the most about her consistent way of looking into his eyes no matter what she’s heard over the communications.

James nearly makes the invitation half a dozen times in the year after M’s death. He heads in the direction of Q branch when he knows it will be just her there or he goes in early before a meeting with M to loom over her shoulder. She never kicks him out. She tells him to move his carcass, or find a bloody chair out of her way, but she never tells him to get out of her branch, and for the longest time he doesn’t know why he stops himself from offering.

It’s not until the next truly fantastic cock up on the MI6 roster that he begins to get a clue. He drinks scotch with Eve and M before the funeral and declines to ride with them to it. The scotch had an aftertaste of pond water only in his own mind, but imagining things doesn’t stop him from going deeper into the building instead of exiting it. 

Q branch is dark except for the central station where the Quartermaster stands, her back to him. She’s not in black, and her ugly parka is nowhere in sight. James allows himself a split second of relief before approaching. There’s no scotch waiting for him, but there is a second glass of something strong and almost sickly sweet that he’s never tasted before at her left elbow. He’d always heard the rumors that Q branch brewed their own, but he hadn’t believed them until now. 

It’s the ideal time. MI6 is down to a skeleton staff and everyone would know better than to comment on 007 leaving with the Quartermaster anyway. Q turns to look at him, face flat, but eyes vaguely curious behind her glasses. They aren’t expectant. She was expecting him, but not anything from him. 

Abruptly, the sweetness filters out of his mouth and the taste of scotch returns quickly. For a moment too brief for him to even count he imagines the drop of a head with short curly hair and a glass hitting the ground. Then he tosses back the rest of the sweet drink and leans his hip on Q’s station like it’s exactly where he belongs. 

“I’ve got something better for shots if that’s what you’re looking for.”

She takes a delicate drink of the same sweet concoction in her Q mug before disappearing into the dark of the lab. When she returns, it’s not with scotch and James doesn’t ask why not. Without asking him, she pulls over another chair, opens up shitty telly on her laptop screen without using the army of monitors she has at her disposal, and they spend the afternoon there in Q branch until everyone filters back in from the funeral.

Later, after a particularly clipped conversation with M, Moneypenny walks with him towards Q branch. There’s a lot of cleanup to work on after this cock up.

“So, you and Q?”

There’s no censure, or jealousy there, and James wonders if she’ll still be like that years later with her 00s. He answers her honestly.

“No.”

“Does she know that?”

James pauses mentally remembering the glass for him, the cold temperature of Q branch without the mass of machines running, and the constant quiet presence that he had sat next to.

“Yes.” 

Eve leaves it at that.

**Author's Note:**

> This will have a second piece from Q's point of view, a remix of sorts.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Book cover for This Is His Love, This is Her Body series by Chaerring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/754940) by [catonspeed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catonspeed/pseuds/catonspeed)




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